Byzantium, I Come Not From
by Telemain's Daughter
Summary: When tragedy strikes, the citizens of Highbury rally round the Old House Bookshop and Florence and Edmund find a way to be together. Based on the movie. HEA.


_**A/N:** I was disappointed in how this movie turned out—so I rewound and fixed it. I've changed a few details to start, mainly with Christine still working at the shop, and from there on, I change pretty much _every_ detail. Hope this finds an audience. _

_Enjoy, leave a review. All rights belong to the creators._

* * *

**My Friend, Florence Green**

_20 February, 1960_

Edmund Brundish put out a hand and gripped the florist's door frame with trembling, sweat-slick fingers. His harsh words to Violet Gammart replayed in his head, an echo of the irregular, painful thumping of his heart. He'd not spoken even _half_ the things he'd _wanted_ to say to Mrs. Gammart, but he'd said all the barely-polite ones. He'd said his piece and it had done nothing, _nothing_. In fact, he was very much afraid his words had pushed her to be even more obstinate and vindictive, the old harpy. And now Florence, lovely, courageous Florence and her lovely, courageous bookshop would suffer even more because of his misguided attempt at gallantry.

He found he'd walked farther on, somehow wandered off the high street while trapped in recriminating thoughts and the sick pain gripping his chest. He should find somewhere to sit for a moment before walking all the way home. He never should have _left_, deluded old fool that he was. Too many books had rotted his perception of human nature; no one really had a "change of heart," did they?

Perhaps that's what was happening to him. _His_ heart seemed to be trying it's damnedest to change into something else inside of him. A motorcar, perhaps, or a piece of igneous rock. His vision dimmed at the edges and he leaned against a rough plastered wall, an old advertisement crinkling under his back. He focused on the cart of books in front of him and tried to take a deep breath, and failed. _Work, damn you_, he scolded his lungs, and then his mind paused.

Cart of books. In front of him. Cart of... books.

He lifted his eyes. His steps had led him to the Old House Bookshop. Of course they had. His feet were as much a part of this sentimental conspiracy as his mind and his traitorous heart.

He would go in. Just this once. No one looked to be about, and Florence—Florence would let him rest.

He pushed off the wall, stumbled across the street, and gripped the handrail to pull himself up the steps to the shop door.

_It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed_.

Florence could not resist peeking at the first page of _Dandelion Wine_, the latest Ray Bradbury she'd ordered for the shop. Purportedly "for the shop," but really for Mr. Brundish, who was the only person in Highbury who bought them, with the exception of Wally, who had purchased a copy of _The Martian Chronicles_ with the money she gave him for taking books to Mr. Brundish.

The book was about America, as all Mr. Bradbury's books seemed to be (when they weren't about space), but it was also about small towns, and Florence suspected that small towns the world over shared at least a few common characteristics. Everyone interfering in everyone else's business, for a start.

She snipped off a piece of twine, tied the package up tight, and was debating whether or not to write a note or deliver the book in person later that day, when the bell over the shop door rang and Christine gave a sudden shout.

"Mrs. Green!" The girl skidded around the corner and caught herself on Florence's accounts table, accidentally tossing her dust rag on to the blotter. "Mrs. Green, come quickly. It's Mr. Brundish—I don't think he's well."

Florence hurried to the front of the shop. Mr. Brundish stood just inside the door, his face a mottled grey and red, looking about him as if he'd never seen the inside of a bookshop before. His eyes lit on Florence and he held her gaze for a moment, seeming about to speak—before he fell full length on the wood floor with a reverberating _thud_ that knocked six pink-jacketed Miltons off their shelf.

"Christine, go get Dr. Penny." Florence dropped to her knees beside Mr. Brundish. Her voice sounded shrill in her own ears. "_Run_, Christine."

Christine ran.

"Mr. Brundish?" Florence's hands hovered for a second, then she steeled herself and loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar and felt for a pulse. She couldn't find one, but her hands were suddenly shaking so badly she didn't trust her own assessment.

"Edmund?" He wasn't breathing, and the lack of noise in the shop was chilling.

Christine had left the street door open, and the faint, irregular rhythm of a badly-sung roundel drifted inside. It took a moment for the sound to register with Florence, and then she was running out the door and down the steps.

A clump of blue-sweatered Sea Scouts was marching desultorily along the lane. Florence managed to flag them down and communicate her need of assistance. Scouts were meant to know things about emergencies, weren't they? Whereas Florence mostly knew about books, and books never—never—

The scouts, led by the faithful Wally, clattered past her up the steps and converged on the prone figure of Mr. Brundish.

"Cor, is he dead?" asked one, with disquieting enthusiasm.

"I—I don't think so," said Florence. _Please God, don't let him be dead_.

"Alright, lads," said Wally, pushing his glasses firmly up his nose. "Remember what Mister Raven taught us?"

"No," said a chorus of truculent voices, mixed with a few "mebbe"s.

"Mouth-to-mouth restitution!" crowed one.

"And the arm-waving bit."

"That comes later. Get 'is jacket orf first."

"Don't _hit_ him, Charlie, that's for drowning people."

"Mebbe he drowned, _you_ don't know."

"Am I doing this right?"

"_I_ dunno. Wally?"

"Move 'is arms a bit more."

"Stop _hitting_ him, Charlie!"

Florence hovered, ready to intervene if the boys seemed to be doing more harm than good. One of the older boys, poised near Mr. Brundish's head, gave her an appraising look.

"'Ere, _she_ should do this part. She's got big—"

"_Niles!_" Wally cautioned.

"_Lungs_, I was going to say, lungs!"

Florence knelt by Niles. "Show me what to do."

Wally and Niles guided her through the steps of the newly-invented method of resuscitation, how to tilt the chin up, hold the nose closed, and breathe directly into the mouth. The other boys continued to manipulate Mr. Brundish's arms at intervals, while Charlie kept up a rhythm of enthusiastically punching Mr. Brundish in the chest, despite everyone's attempts to stop him.

Christine hurtled through the door and smacked into Wally, setting off a chain reaction of falling Sea Scouts. The girl clambered out of the pile, breathless, and announced the Dr. Penny was out on a call. "But Mrs. Penny—" she began.

Mrs. Penny, the doctor's wife, stepped briskly over the threshold, and again over the Sea Scouts. "Mrs. Green, are you well?" Florence managed a gulping nod. "Good. Christine said—good heavens, what have you been letting these boys _do_ to Mr. Brundish?"

"We were _helping_," said Wally defensively, staggering to his feet.

"Mr. Raven has been teaching them about rescue work." Florence relinquished her position to Mrs. Penny. "I thought they would know more than me about—about—"

"Yes, well, you may be right there," said Mrs. Penny, checking Mr. Brundish's pulse with a practiced air. "Let's be a bit more organized about this, shall we, lads? No, Charlie, that's quite enough from you, thank you. Wally, as you were."

With the coordinated help of two Sea Scouts, Mrs. Penny worked over Mr. Brundish for two interminable minutes, until he gave a hideous gasping noise and his legs thrashed. Florence clutched at Christine, but Mrs. Penny seemed quite pleased.

"You're back with us, Mr. Brundish," she said loudly, "and not before time. You're in the bookshop now, with your friend, Mrs. Green. Stand up, dear, so he can see you," she instructed Florence.

On shaking legs, Florence stood. Mr. Brundish did not look greatly improved, except for his eyes being open and the fact that he was visibly breathing. Florence bit her lip to keep from crying.

"Do you see your friend, Mr. Brundish?" Mrs. Penny asked. "Well, he's looking at you, that's something. Wally, Charlie, run for Mr. Raven and Jed. We shan't be able to lift him by ourselves."

The boys dashed out the door and Mrs. Penny stood up. She wiped her hands on a handkerchief and looked Florence up and down. Florence felt distinctly that she did not measure up.

"I'll have my husband along to look at him, as soon as he's back from the chemist's in Finbury. In the meantime, what are we to do with Mr. Brundish? He'll need a great deal of care, and if we put him back in that drafty old house of his, he'll be dead in a week, if not sooner." Taking in Florence's expression, she softened her tone a bit. "Does he have any friends, dear? Anywhere he could stay? Or should I send for the ambulance, as well?"

"I don't—he has me." Florence spoke a little louder. "He has me. He can stay here."

"Are you sure? A great _deal_ of care, you know." She lowered her voice. "He may not make it even then, dear. Heart troubles are tricky."

"Here," Florence insisted. "Upstairs. I'll manage."

"If you're sure, then." Mrs. Penny turned to direct Mr. Raven and Jed, who were just clomping into the shop in their waders. "Upstairs, if you please, gentlemen. Which room, Mrs. Green?"

"I don't—I never—there's only the one bed." Mrs. Penny raised a brow and Florence hurried on. "My room. Put him in my room. Second door off the landing."

Mrs. Penny gave her an odd look, but she supervised the removal of Mr. Brundish to the iron bed upstairs. Mr. Raven came back down first, trailing Jed, and rounded up the Sea Scouts, who were congratulating each other and greatly embellishing their various contributions to the afternoon's events.

"Will you be all right, then, Mrs. Green?" Mr. Raven asked, in what passed, for him, as a low voice.

"Oh yes," said Florence, not at all sure that she would. "Yes, of course. Thank you _so_ much, Mr. Raven, for all your help. And thank the boys for me, would you?"

Mr. Raven gave an expressive sniff, but he nodded as he left.

Mrs. Penny descended the stairs at her usual brisk trot. "As I said, I'll send my husband round as soon as, and every day after 'til your Mr. Brundish is up and around again. You've a deal of work in store for you, dear. Have you nursed before, or should I send our Sharon round, as well?"

"I trained. In London. During the war."

Mrs. Penny nodded, and her expression changed, showing more concern than she had so far displayed. "People will talk, you know."

Florence gave a half-hysterical yip of laughter. "They've done nothing _but_ talk since I got here, since I opened this shop! And I'd like to know what 'people' think is going to happen, when the poor man—when he—"

Mrs. Penny patted her arm. "You and I know it's all nonsense, dear. I simply felt it my duty to warn you. You know your own business best, I'm sure." She leaned in and lowered her voice. "Mr. Brundish is lucky to have a friend such as you. Now, come along, Christine! It's ten past five and I'm sure your mother's worrying."

"I doubt it," said Christine. "Besides, I'd rather stay."

"No, it's alright, Christine," said Florence, who had rather forgotten the girl was there; she had a talent for making herself unobtrusive when she chose. "I'm closing the shop, and we can't have tea this evening, I'm sorry." In defense against Christine's penetrating look, she offered a weak smile. "Go home, really, I'll see you tomorrow."

Mrs. Penny repeated her assurances of her husband's imminent visitation and ushered an obstinate Christine from the shop. Florence flipped the lock on the door and slid the "closed" card over the "open" sign in the window.

Now she was alone. Except she wasn't.

She felt considerably more equal to caring for a sick man in the abstract, without the dire immediacy of Mr. Brundish's body before her eyes. She hesitated to go upstairs, when it would all become so real again.

He'd almost _died_. In front of her. And the only reason he'd left his house, walked all this way, become so agitated, was on _her behalf—_

She sniffed, hard, and pressed the heels of her hands to her cheeks, and went to pick up Milton and the stack of nature encyclopedias the Sea Scouts had disarranged. Mr. Brundish's hat had rolled away under a display table. She picked it up and placed it carefully on the seat of one of the reading chairs, where Mr. Raven had draped Mr. Brundish's coat and jacket, which the boys had so helpfully and hastily removed. There was a rip in the coat's lining now; she would have to mend that, Florence thought absently, fingering the navy silk, and then a flash of color caught her eye.

A silk scarf was spilling out of one of the coat's pockets. Florence pulled it out, recognition and realization flooding her equally and at once. It was _her_ scarf, the one with the birds, the one she'd lost that day on the headlands when she'd first seen Mr. Brundish, a distant figure beyond the sea grass.

She ran the scarf through her fingers wonderingly, then pressed it to her chest and sat abruptly, quite squashing Mr. Brundish's hat, and cried and cried and cried and cried.

* * *

Florence awoke, long after midnight, when the book in her lap fell to the floor with a muffled thud. She started up, her neck and back crackling from her cramped position in the chair beside the bed. The lamp was still on, and its yellow glow flowed over Mr. Brundish's sharp features. She watched him for a moment, marking the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath the counterpane, then reached down and retrieved the book. She placed it carefully on the bedside table, running her fingers lightly over the title. _Dandelion Wine_. It was the copy she'd wrapped for Mr. Brundish that very afternoon, retrieved from her desk after Dr. Penny's visit had left both her and Mr. Brundish agitated and unable to settle.

Dr. Penny was considerably less optimistic than his wife, in his general outlook on life and in this instance in particular. He did not praise the methods of the Sea Scouts; Florence suspected he viewed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as a lower form of necromancy. He left her with a dire prediction: _if_ Mr. Brundish survived the next three days he _might_ have a chance at recovery. His tone suggested he doubted Mr. Brundish's chances of surviving the next three _hours_ in Florence's care.

The interview left Florence wanting to smack something, and Mr. Brundish, in some nebulous and fitful world between wakefulness and sleep, pushing at the covers and making every effort to fall out of the bed. In desperation, Florence had made tea, settled herself in the chair beside the bed, and begun reading aloud. She did not know if Mr. Brundish really was, on some level, awake, or if he, on any level, understood her, but she rather thought he was, and did. His restive movements stilled after the first page, and Florence read for another two hours before her voice gave out and she fell asleep.

She stood up now and stretched, switched off the lamp, and then on second thought, switched it back on again. She did not want either of them to spend this night in the dark. Gathering up her empty cup and saucer, she padded out to the kitchenette on stocking feet. Tomorrow she would have to call up every bit of her decades-old nurse's training and begin care in earnest, although what would be the best form of care for a heart patient she would have to piece together from books, common sense, and the indefatigable store of knowledge that was Mrs. Penny. (Florence was determined to avoid the dour Dr. Penny from now on, if at all possible.)

The enormity of what she had undertaken did not seem to be reaching below the surface of her awareness. The enormity of what had almost come to pass on her shop floor this afternoon certainly had, and her every action since then had been a kind of fierce rebuttal against the dark void of possibility.

She rinsed her cup, ate a few digestive biscuits standing up, splashed water on her face, and returned to her room. She retrieved her nightgown and wrapper and changed in the hall, then prepared to settle in for the remainder of an uncomfortable night in the chair.

"Florence."

The cracked whisper halted her. She sat on the edge of the bed. His eyes were open, though unfocused, and she took his hand as she had done that day on the beach.

"I'm here," she said.

"I tried," he muttered. "Didn't make a damn...bit of difference. Old harpy." A pause. "I let you down. 'M sorry."

"You never did." Florence gripped his fingers tighter in her own. "That you would go at all, and speak on my behalf..." She was in danger of crying again, and he had slipped away from her.

"Mr. Brundish." And then, more firmly, "_Edmund_." His head tipped toward her. "Edmund, you must never leave me like that again. Do you hear me? _Never_."

There was a pause, and then, "Wouldn't dream of it. You'd...set the Sea Scouts on me." His fingers squeezed her hand and Florence smiled through her tears.

* * *

The next three days passed in a strange sort of haze for Florence. She survived them, she knew that, and Edmund survived them, which was the more important, but the bookshop _also_ survived them, and how that came to pass was the oddest part of the whole affair.

She came down the next morning to find Milo North sitting in her shop as if he'd always been there.

"Hullo, Florence!" He snapped a copy of _Lolita_ shut and unfolded to his feet. "What an apt name you have."

She simply stared at him, standing frozen and uncomprehending on the bottom step.

"Because you've taken up nursing," he explained with a little laugh. "Florence Nightingale, you know."

"Is there a reason you're in my shop, Mr. North?" Florence asked in a thin voice.

"What can I say? I like to help."

"He's here because the whole village is talking about you, Mrs. Green." Christine struggled out from the back room, her arms overflowing with books. Milo made no move to assist her. Florence grabbed the top half of the stack as Christine went by before the girl could dump them all.

"The whole village, yes, but especially Violet Gammart," Milo continued with undisguised relish.

Florence clutched the books to her chest. "What's she saying now? No, don't tell me."

"Shan't," said Milo, with an unrepentant grin. "It's barely repeatable in the company of a child." Christine stuck her tongue out at him as she passed by again. Milo returned the gesture.

Florence offloaded the books into his arms. "As long as you're here, you can be useful." She raised her voice to be heard by Christine in the back. "And I expect both of you to behave yourselves and get along!"

"I'd rather eat live snails!" said Christine.

"That can be arranged!" said Milo.

"Oh God," said Florence, and the business day began.

Somehow, between the three of them, they kept the shop open. Mostly (and most surprisingly), it was Milo and Christine running the register and recommending books to the unprecedented flow of customers. The floor of Florence's bookshop had borne witness to A Drama, and Mrs. Gammart's accusations of impropriety (which, despite Milo's genuine efforts to shield her, did eventually reach Florence's ears), sent people who had last picked up a book in grammar school running to the Old House Bookshop, ready to gawk at the floor and the ceiling, equally.

Christine, who was becoming quite the persuasive saleswoman, sent each and every one of them away with a book. Milo, who had, as he himself gleefully admitted, a talent for shit-stirring, sent them away with a juicy piece of gossip, usually fabricated on the spot.

Florence kept a sliver of her mind on the shop and almost none of her mind on the villager's scandal-mongering. All the rest of her attention was taken up with caring for Edmund, who was still very weak. The first two days he mostly spent in his own distant landscape, away from her, and Florence spent any spare moments of watchfulness reading aloud from _Dandelion Wine_, as much for her benefit as for his.

The third day he awoke, and asked for food, and by nightfall Florence collapsed in the chair to catch a few hours sleep with a scrap of hope held fast within her heart.

They made it through the first three days.

And in much the same way, the four of them made it through the next week. Milo and Christine in the shop, Edmund upstairs, and Florence running between the two.

By the following Friday, Florence was ready to drop where she stood. Christine had had to be sent home with a cold and Florence had taken up her slack in the still-bustling shop.

Milo shooed the last customer out at a quarter past five, just as Florence was deciding to leave the accounts, yet again, for another day. She swallowed the dregs of a cold cup of tea and tuned back in to Milo's incessant chat.

"—selling _Lolita_. Can't keep it on the shelves. Nor those naughty postcards of yours—" this with a little leer, "—although I'm not _entirely_ sure everyone's paying for those."

"Never mind. At least they're going away." She snapped off her desk lamp and moved to the stairs.

"I'll just let myself out, then. See you tomorrow, Flo."

"Wait!" She paused on the steps. "Did the post come?"

"Er, no." Milo hurried himself into his coat. "That is—it's on your desk. What came. You must have—"

"You're a terrible liar sometimes, Milo," Florence said wearily. "Give me whatever's in your pocket, please. I can hear it crinkling."

Milo hesitated, then drew out a letter and passed it to her. He looked genuinely sorry, although Florence supposed that could be from being caught in a lie.

He'd opened it, of course. It was from Mrs. Gammart. Florence unfolded the thick, creamy stationary covered in perfect whorls of ink and scanned its contents in the low light. _Indecency...pornography...example to children...moral turpitude...desist..._

She crumpled it back into the envelope and shoved it at Milo. "Do you have a fireplace in that shack of yours?"

"Er...yes."

"Burn this."

He took the letter gingerly, smoothed it out, and tucked it away. "You're really something, Florence Green," he said wonderingly. "You're really...something else."

* * *

He could sit up under his own power this evening. He'd been trying out his extremities and appendages all day, moving his arms and shifting his legs while Florence was down in the shop (and therefore too far away to see, and admonish him). He's even tried swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up, but that had nearly proved disastrous and he'd swiftly aborted the attempt.

But sitting up, sitting up he could manage. Knives and forks and pens and teacups, he could manage. He felt quite pleased with this small progress. His body was beginning to feel like his own again, to have a weight and a mass and a bloody _grasp on reality_ that had been missing since the attack in the bookshop.

Florence looked ready to fall down. She was changing into her nightclothes out in the hall, and he heard her stumble twice. She'd hardly spoken to him since the morning—not because of anything he'd done, he felt sure (he _hoped_), but out of exhaustion and a supreme preoccupation of mind. Things were happening, down in the shop and out in the village, things she wouldn't tell him. The better he felt, the more keenly he perceived the burden his care and presence placed upon her—and heaven alone knew what the mindless village gossips were saying about... all this.

Well. Heaven, and probably Florence.

She came back into the small bedroom and slowly put her clothes away, then gave him a reflexive smile and switched off the lamp. In the sudden dim, her head and shoulders were silhouetted against the light from the window as she unfolded the afghan. She was swaying on her feet.

"Florence." His voice sounded overly loud in the quiet room. "Don't be silly. Come lie down."

"'S'not silly," she countered. "You need your rest."

"Don't be a martyr, then. We can both rest." He took a stab at levity. "I promise I won't try anything."

It was a sign of her exhaustion that she neither argued nor rose to the joke (though it _had_ been a pretty poor joke). She just stood there, clutching the afghan and swaying.

"Florence." Softer now. "Come to bed."

She swayed a moment longer, then walked around the bed and clambered in on the right side, wrapping the afghan around her and lying on top of the sheets. He slid down and crossed his arms over his chest like a dead warrior, and they lay there stiffly for several long minutes, a stone knight and a crocheted log.

Florence moved first. She unrolled herself and slid beneath the proper covers, spreading the afghan over them both. She moved unhesitatingly into his side, and out of some Pavlovian male reflex, he lifted his arm for her to—

He cleared his throat. "I am sorry, but really, I'm not up to—"

"Don't be daft," Florence snapped. "Just hold me." Still he hesitated and she turned her head, her lovely, squinty eyes deeper recesses of darkness. "Please. I haven't been held in so long."

He pulled her snug into his side, her head on his chest and her hands curled between them. For a moment, she held herself as stiffly as before, and then she exhaled, and it was as if sixteen years of unacknowledged tension left her body on one breath. She melted against him, and he felt himself relax utterly for the first time in—he didn't know how long. He dipped his head and kissed her hair. She smelled of warm powder and books and rosemary.

Her right hand smoothed the pyjama fabric over his chest and lightly traced the button placket that lay over his sternum. He found himself almost holding his breath. Her slim, agile fingers slipped the top three buttons from their holes and she pushed the fabric aside, lifted her head, and pressed a soft kiss to his chest. Right over his heart. Once, twice, then she subsided into his arms, her head in the curve of his shoulder and her warm hand resting over his heart.

She was asleep in minutes, and he followed soon after. Edmund Brundish had never slept so well in his _life_ as he did with Florence Green in his embrace.

* * *

No more communications came from Mrs. Gammart after that first horrible letter. Florence could almost make herself believe the letter had not been real. So nightmarish were its contents, it seemed a fitting end to that first week, part and parcel of that shifting, surreal world where the line between her dread imaginings and dire reality was never firmly held.

And what had happened _after_ the letter—Florence had no trouble disbelieving _that_. Only the fact that it kept happening, that every night someone—_Edmund—_held her while she slept, reassured her. There was something very solid and precious about those hours together. They never spoke of them during the day, the small touches that passed between them, the way he kissed her hair and how she slept easiest with her head on his chest, listening to the soothing double beat of his heart. Something had changed between them, irrevocably.

Something had shifted in the village, too. Florence could feel it, though she rarely left the shop or her flat over the next month. Christine and Wally insisted on running any errands she might need, and Milo, despite being patently awful at maths and refusing to unpack crates, minded the shop with a tenacious loyalty that touched Florence, even as she found him infuriating.

"Don't you have a job you're neglecting?" she asked irritably, coming out of the back room one morning to find him lounging in a chair. "'Isn't your girlfriend missing you?"

"I doubt it." Milo calmly turned a page of the latest Graham Greene. "She's buggered off with a lad from World News."

"Oh. Sorry."

He shrugged. "_C'est la vie_."

"Don't you have another job, though?"

"I'm afraid that's buggered off as well."

She lowered her hands and the excelsior she'd been picking from her hair drifted to the floor. "Not because of—?"

He closed the book and laid it aside. "Because of you and your shop? Not directly, no. Stop looking so horrifically guilty, Flo." He'd taken to called her Flo, and even though she disliked it intensely, she let it slide as one of his least offensive habits. "Although I will say, you and Brundish are setting quite the example of standing up to bullies. Unfortunately for me, the BBC has a more swift and terrible form of retribution than Vi Gammart." He stood up and swung his coat over his shoulder. "Out for a fag. Back in a mo, Flo."

"Milo?" He turned at the door. "Thank you. Have I said it yet, properly? Thank you."

He grinned. "No worries, doll face."

Mrs. Gammart's retribution seemed content to confine itself to keeping people away from the shop; over the next three weeks, Florence saw not a single member of the "best set" of Highbury, not even those whom it had pleased to come and gawk at her shop in the first throes of dramatic interest.

Mrs. Gammart could not keep everyone away, though. A steady stream of what Milo insisted on calling "the common folk" came to browse her books and steal her postcards. They came, and they bought books, and they told her she was doing "a good thing," although whether they meant running the bookshop in the teeth of Violet Gammart or taking care of Mr. Brundish in the face of all propriety, she could not tell.

She was the recipient of many highly embellished stories concerning Edmund's "late" wife. "He must have been quite alone out in that rackety old house," they invariably concluded. "But he's not alone now, is he?"

No, he wasn't alone. And neither was she.

* * *

In books, people always looked breathtakingly beautiful while they slept. Florence looked like a hedgehog. Small, brown, curled up, and very prickly if awoken suddenly.

Edmund set the tray of tea and toast on the bedside table and went to draw back the curtains. It was not yet seven, and the sun was only just beginning to peer over the horizon.

The bed rustled and creaked, and Florence's face appeared. "You're up," she said.

"Good morning." His voice sounded so formal and he hated it. He sat on the end of the bed and tried not to fidget. Fidgeting had been beaten out of him at school, but it returned despite the rod whenever he was nervous.

Most often, then, in the presence of Florence.

"You made tea," said Florence. It always took her a few minutes to come to terms with mornings.

(_Always_. He'd only been here five _weeks_.)

Florence pushed herself up and took a sip of tea. She yawned and cradled the cup in her hands, then frowned.

"You made tea." It sounded much more accusatory this time. "You're _up_ and you made _tea_. You're not supposed to—"

"Mrs. Penny said I should start returning to daily tasks as soon as possible." Florence seemed to set great store by the wisdom of the frighteningly efficient Mrs. Penny. He could not seem to look away from his hands. "I have been practicing, while you're in the shop. Walking, standing, lifting—"

"_Lifting?_"

"Small things," he amended hastily. "I can't—sit around for—I want—"

Words deserted him. He'd prepared a speech, over the past three weeks. He couldn't remember a single word of it now, which so discomfited him as to render him unable to think of _new_ words. Damned books, leading him to believe speeches were necessary. He could shout imprecations at Violet Gammart, but when it came to saying what he really felt to Florence—

"You want to leave." Her voice was so quiet and wounded it jolted him out of his twisting thoughts and he looked up. A sad hedgehog, a deserted hedgehog, clutching a teacup. "You want to go home."

"Er—no. And yes." _You're home. Just _say_ it, Brundish, it's not that hard. You are my home._ "Um..."

She set the cup down very carefully. It still rattled in the saucer; her hands were shaking. "Is this the part where you thank me for my hospitality, then?"

"Er, no." This was a disaster. "I mean, yes. You've been, you are—incredible."

"I don't want you to go."

"Good..." He felt slightly faint, although not in a bad way. _Was it possible...?_

Florence got her legs under her and scooted down the bed toward him. Her hair was sleep-wild and a pillow crease still marked her cheek.

"Don't, please don't go back to that house. I'll never know if you're all right."

Perhaps it wasn't possible. Perhaps she was still acting in her capacity as his nurse, and it was his own overwrought imagination assigning meaning to her tone, to the look in her eyes, and—

She was touching his arm. She'd touched him quite a lot over the past month, but this was not a nurse's touch. This was—this was the way she touched him at night, the hours they spent together and did not speak of in the morning.

As if her fingers had pressed a button somewhere in his mind, some fragment of his prepared speech returned to him and decided, seemingly of its own accord, to leave his mouth.

"You are so lovely, Florence." He was addressing _her_ hands now, and not above a whisper, either. "Lovely, and brave, and I _do _so wish I'd met you earlier—"

Her hand clutched at his arm. The hedgehog was cross. (_Stop thinking of her as a hedgehog, Brundish._)

"It doesn't _matter_ that you're a few years older than me—"

"Twenty years," he muttered, "no need to be delicate—"

"I _don't care_." Her voice was thick and her eyes over-bright. "I love you."

His breath caught. He reached up and brushed a curl of her thick chestnut hair from where it had tangled itself in her eyelashes, allowing himself the liberty of touching her in the daylight. He stroked her temple and ran his thumb down the soft line of her cheek. She took his hand in both of hers and kissed it, as he had done with her that day on the beach. She closed her eyes and kept her lips pressed to his knuckles and he felt the dampness of her tears on his skin.

And suddenly, Edmund found the only words that mattered.

"I—adore you."

She lifted her head.

"I'm not trying to leave, Florence. I'm trying, very badly, to ask you to let me stay with you. For—for as long as—forever, I suppose."

For one deathless moment, they simply stared at each other. Then Florence launched herself into his arms and kissed him with an abandon he hadn't known her capable of.

She seemed to remember herself after a moment and tried to pull away, embarrassed, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her fast, pressing soft kisses to her cheeks and eyes. Her hands were in his hair and her skin was so warm through the fabric of her nightdress and he dipped his head and kissed the sharp line of her collarbone.

She stilled, her breath shallow. He remembered what she had done that first night she'd climbed, exhausted, into bed with him. Carefully, almost reverently, he pushed aside the collar of her nightdress and stroked his fingers across her chest. He kissed the soft warmth of her left breast, feeling the beat of her heart against his lips.

The look in her eyes when he met her gaze—no woman had ever looked at him like that. The full intensity of Florence's—_his_ Florence's—spirit was focused on him in that instant, and he could not look away. He never wanted to.

She shifted and lay back on the bed, drawing him down with her, and they made love with a slow, deliberate enjoyment as the toast cooled and the morning light spread across the room.

* * *

**2 The Arts Centre**

On the day her life changed for the third time in as many months, Florence sat surrounded by books on the steps leading up to her flat, rereading _Villette_. Spring sunshine poured through the open door, warming the wood floors until they gave off a pleasant, musty smell. The faint sound of Christine and Milo's bickering reached her from the back room, but did not impinge upon her good mood. They did it for sport, she'd finally realized; it signified very little. She could hear Edmund pottering around upstairs, likely preparing another cake-heavy tea, and Gounod's _Manon_ drifted down from the gramophone.

A shadow fell across Florence's sunshine. She looked up. A man in a trilby hat and a light brown coat stood in the doorway. "Mrs. Green?" he asked, stepping inside.

"Yes?" Florence marked her place in the book with her finger, not quite ready to relinquish her calm afternoon.

"Albert Talbot. From the council?" He held out his hand. "I'm here to take possession of the premises."

Florence gave a small laugh. "There must be some mistake. You're _what_?"

The man looked around with a slightly aggrieved air. "I've sent several letters, Mrs. Green. This really goes much faster if you start vacating _before_ the final date." He picked up a postcard of a man examining a lady's breasts with a monocle. He peered at it with distaste and hastily replaced it. "I'd hate to have to bring in the removal men, Mrs. Green. You'll never get your things back that way—"

Florence slapped her book down and stood up. Milo and Christine had grown quiet and even Manon had ceased warbling about depravity. It felt as if the Old House itself were listening, holding its breath.

"There must be some mistake," Florence repeated.

"There's no mistake, Mrs. Green," said Mr. Talbot. "You're being evicted."

* * *

The second letter had come on the day Florence screwed up her courage to ask Edmund about his wife. (The first letter, had, of course, been the one sent by Mrs. Gammart, the one Florence had instructed Milo to burn. The first of many, though she did not know it at the time.)

The village of Highbury seemed to have accepted Florence and Edmund's new relationship with more equanimity than Florence herself did. For two people who had spent the better part of their respective adult lives alone, the decision to cohabit, made in a heady rush on a spring morning, was easier made than perpetuated.

_Not_ the co-mingling of their possessions; that took place over one weekend, and happened so subtly Florence would hardly have noticed, except that her dresser suddenly had shirts and waistcoats in it and the volume of books in her sitting room tripled. It was the combining of their lives that tripped them up, the little personal rituals and schedules and ways of doing things. Florence knew with deep-seated certainty that she wanted Edmund, in her life and in her bed, but outside of her bed she didn't quite know what to do with him now she had him. Caring for him had given their interactions a focus; now that he was convalescent and rapidly improving, she was making a concerted effort not to hover. The chasm that was forming between them seemed to be where they chucked all topics of conversation neither one knew how to bring up: which one of us does the cooking? How do we divvy up housework? Am I allowed to read your books, or just my own? How will we occupy our time?

Are you expecting to marry me?

Florence thought, once it became obvious to the people of Highbury that Edmund was healthier yet still residing in her flat, she would be subjected to some stern looks at the very least. Florence underestimated the secret love of romance harboured by the majority of Highbury residents. She was snubbed in the street by a few of the local women who rejoiced in their own private brand of righteous piety, but since these were the same women who avoided the entire street in which the bookshop was located in order not to have to walk past the _Lolita_ display in the front window, she felt this an easy punishment.

More often she got smiles, and approving nods, and confidences about other peoples' lovers to which she had no earthly idea how to respond. Florence wondered, daily, how much of this she owed to Milo and his campaign of deflecting gossip. She wondered what he'd told people. She did not dare to ask.

Sunday had been a particularly awkward day. The shop was closed, and Florence and Edmund spent the day edging around each other in the flat until they could go to bed at last. In bed, in the dark, they found each other again; during the day, Florence was growing twitchy in the oppressive silence and Edmund seemed to be attempting to take up less and less space. It was beginning to leach into their nights, too; that night they barely touched each other.

On Monday morning, Florence gave herself an ultimatum: she would _speak_ to Edmund like the goddamn adult woman she was, or she was not allowed to go to bed at all. They couldn't go on as they were. For one thing, the tea cups were piling up in a passive-aggressively deferential mountain that was sure to end in disaster at any moment.

The post slid through the slot as Florence passed by with an a handful of E. Nesbit novels. She set the books down and retrieved the small stack of envelopes practically out from under Milo's nose, as he came hustling out from the back, moving faster than she'd ever seen him.

"D'you have somewhere to be, Milo?" she asked, flipping through the stack.

"Just... getting the post."

"I notice you do that most days."

"All part of the service."

Florence snorted. "You just like reading my mail."

"Harsh, but true." He hovered, shamelessly reading over her shoulder.

A tremendous crash sounded from the flat upstairs, followed by residual tinkly noises. Florence stared at the ceiling and sighed.

Milo looked almost concerned. "Do you...?"

"I know what it was." She glanced over the envelopes one more time. The last was from Mrs. Gammart. Florence pulled it out and stared at it for a long moment. Then she bundled them all back together, handed the lot off to Milo and headed upstairs to be a goddamn adult woman.

Edmund looked properly guilty. He almost jumped when she appeared in the doorway to the kitchenette. "I'm fixing it," he said. "I...will be fixing it."

She wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned on the door frame, looking down at her shoes and then back up, and then away. "How much of it?"

He picked up a shard from the floor and turned it over speculatively. "Well, if I had some glue—"

"No, how much of this is my fault?"

"I probably drink more tea than you, overall."

"I'm not talking about the cups, love."

"Ah. Yes."

"Do you _know_ what I'm talking about?"

He set the shard and the tea towel carefully on the drainboard. "We seem to be having a conversation about how we don't have conversations. I will warn you, I avoid philosophical thought on the grounds that it's utter bollocks."

Florence huffed a laugh and swiped at her cheeks. She'd always cried at the slightest provocation and it vexed her. "What are we going to do?"

"I—don't know. I don't know how to be in this any more than you do. Rather less, I suspect."

She straightened up, put her shoulders back and made herself look him in the eye. "Are you going to be divorcing your wife?"

"Do you want me to?"

A silence stretched between them.

"That—was very probably the wrong way to say that," Edmund concluded.

"Yes, it very probably was." Florence hugged herself and slumped again. "But at least you were honest."

Edmund came closer. "_Do _you want me to? Because I will. If you—if you want to get married. Only I wasn't very good at it the first time round—"

"But that wasn't _you_!" Florence said in a rush, instantly defending him. "That was the two of you, together!"

"Yes, and the two of _us_ together can't manage to wash a tea cup between us," Edmund pointed out. "So you can see where I'm getting a bit nervous."

She reached out and snagged his hand, gave it a tug. "Don't be nervous. It's just me."

"You are single-handedly the most terrifying thing I know. I love you so much, and I don't want to mess this up."

_Do not cry_, she admonished herself. _Do _not. "I love you, too."

He took a step closer, until they were only a breath apart."So how do we fix this?"

"I suppose we just...talk to each other."

"Heaven preserve us."

"It can't be that hard."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" He followed the curve of her bangs with his thumb.

"_I_ think we've gotten very good at _non_-verbal communication," Florence said, leaning into him. "We're practically _experts_. So it stands to reason..."

"Couldn't hurt to practice a bit more, though, could it?" He tilted her chin up and caught her lips in a soft kiss that quickly deepened as Florence wound her arms around his shoulders and pulled him back with her. They bumped into the wall and broke apart, laughing a little breathlessly.

"See?" said Florence. "We're talking!"

"This isn't talking. We're sparking; that's different."

She couldn't hold in a peal of giggles. "You still call it sparking?"

"I'm an old-fashioned man, Florence." He raised a brow in mock sternness. "The modern slang has somewhat passed me by."

"I think it's sweet."

"That's good to hear." He dipped his head and kissed the shell of her ear and whispered, "Because I'd very much like to have it away with you later."

"I don't know what that one means," she whispered back.

"You're a bright girl." He nosed aside her hair and kissed her neck as his hand slipped up under her skirt. "You'll figure it out."

"Oh..." Florence let out a small moan when his hand found the top of her stocking and then kept going. She tipped her head back, feeling a bit like a harlot to be doing this in the middle of the day, up against the wall in her kitchenette, but with his mouth caressing her neck and the sweep of her chest left bare by her dress and his fingers stroking her into a quiet frenzy, she found she did not care. This was... this was... _heaven_, and then her mind cut out and Edmund kissed her to stifle her small scream of pleasure.

She floated back into herself and opened her eyes. Edmund was looking at her with something akin to awe, and the only thing keeping her upright at that moment was his body pressing her into the wall.

"About the tea cups," she said.

"I'm really terribly sorry about that."

"I know. I meant—I'll clean if you'll cook."

He shook his head. "Must warn you, I'm not that good at cooking."

"You have to be better than me. I set things on fire."

"You do, don't you," he murmured with a smirk, straightening her skirts.

"_Concentrate_, darling."

He stepped back and took a deep breath. "Will you marry me?"

"No."

"All... right..."

"I don't want to get married again, not—not _church_ married," Florence tried to explain. "You don't need to divorce Louisa; I don't mind. But I wanted _you_ to want to. Or at least, to be willing."

"I'm willing to do almost anything as long as it means keeping you." He put his hands on her shoulders, looking serious. "We'll talk, I promise. We'll—we'll figure it out as we go along."

"Just as long as we're together."

"Yes, exactly." His expression softened. "I really am hopelessly in love with you."

"Good." She grinned. "Because I want you to have it away with me later, and I only do that with people who are hopelessly in love with me."

He turned her toward the stairs and gave her a playful push."Get back to work, you wicked woman. I have cup sherds to collect."

She laughed and started down. She was halfway back to the shop when he called to her softly from the top of the stairs.

"Florence—d'you think we can be happy?"

"I _am_ happy." She ran back up to him. "Right this minute, I am happier than I've ever been." She took his face in her hands and kissed him, feeling giddy. "Infinitely, immeasurably happy."

* * *

The third letter was waiting for Florence on the floor of her shop when she came back from not getting married.

Technically, every day was a day Florence did not get married, but the weekend of 17 April, 1960, had the distinction of being when everyone else in Highbury _thought_ she got married.

Edmund and Florence had borrowed Milo's motorcar for a drive up the coast to St. Simon-on-Sea. They'd been planning it for a few weeks, and everyone to whom Florence mentioned the trip advised her, with a knowing wink, to "be sure to look at the cathedral chapel," and other bits of church innuendo.

"Since when do we seem like religious tourists?" Edmund grumbled over supper the night before they left. He'd spent the day in the shop with her, and consequently been exposed to the high levels of hints Florence experienced every day.

Florence bit her lip, amused. "They think we're eloping."

"No!" Edmund looked almost scandalized. "But we're—"

"Old and stodgy creatures of habit, who prefer to live in sin?" Florence finished, laughing.

"Speak for yourself, woman," Edmund admonished, but he was laughing too.

They drove by the small cathedral of St. Simon-on-Sea but did not stop, instead heading straight for the harbor. They left the car by the marina wall. It was a sunny day with a chilly wind; all the boats were out, and only a few committed families had spread blankets on the sand of the small public beach. Florence and Edmund kept walking.

They ate their box lunch on a flat, sun-warmed rock and made a few forays into the still-icy water with their socks and stockings rolled up, Florence shrieking in delight at the waves. After, they stretched out to dry on the rock and Edmund fell asleep for a while, his head pillowed on Florence's chest. It was a lovely day. As she lay there, Florence's thoughts, no doubt influenced by the hints of Highbury, turned back to her own wedding day with Arthur.

She was meant to have had a long engagement and a June wedding at home in Coventry, where she'd grown up. But then the war started and Arthur enlisted, and instead she'd gotten married in an Underground station the night before Arthur left for training, the vows read by a slightly drunk vicar she'd never met, while bombs fell overhead and the walls vibrated. She and Arthur could barely hear each other say "I Will" with the air raid sirens going off, but they'd been grinning at each other like stupid children throughout the whole thing, and it hardly mattered, anyway. They needed proof of marriage for the army's records so Florence would receive Arthur's pension "in the event," but she'd belonged to Arthur and he to her long before they'd yelled their vows at Reverend Capshaw.

She sifted her fingers through Edmund's hair and thought of what he'd said the morning they'd made love for the first time: _...to stay with you for—for as long as—forever, I suppose_. She smiled. _That_ was their wedding day. And so was this. And so was last Tuesday, when they'd gotten drunk on half a bottle of sherry and tried to set Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo" to music. Every day was a wedding day, a joining day, a day of commitment and deciding, hour after hour, to be together out of love.

Edmund's slight, buzzing snore stopped. "Are you awake?" Florence asked softly.

"Mmm."

"Do you want to leave yet?"

"No. You?"

"No." She relaxed into the way they breathed in tandem and watched the waves roll in and out upon the shore. "Today _is_ our wedding day," she whispered. "Every day is, I've decided."

He picked up her left hand and rubbed his thumb across each of her fingers in turn, then brought it to his mouth and kissed her third finger, down by the knuckle.

"With my body, I thee worship," he murmured in a voice rough with sleep, and he kissed her finger again, exactly where a ring would have gone. She turned her hand and tangled their fingers together and brought his hand up to her mouth to be kissed. It was his right hand, for his left was under her back, but it didn't matter.

"And unto thee I pledge my troth," she whispered, quoting from the same ancient vows. The words came from a time of knights and ladies, queens and poets, and somehow they fit this day, this love, better than modern promises.

He moved up and kissed her then, and rolled her on top of him, and they gave each other cause to be very glad the beach was deserted that day.

It was a perfectly imperfect wedding day.

Not even the arrival of another letter from Mrs. Gammart could dull it. The envelope was lying on the floor of the shop with the rest of the evening post when they got back. Florence glanced at it, then deposited it all on her desk without a backward glance and let herself be dragged upstairs, laughing, by Edmund—her lover, her husband, her friend.

* * *

The fourth letter arrived, with letters 4A, 4B, and 4C enclosed like a set of nasty nesting dolls, while Florence was in the powder room, throwing up everything she'd consumed that morning.

For one terrifying moment, Florence's brain entertained the possibility that she was pregnant. She was in her forties, but it was still possible; she'd heard of it happening to a woman of fifty-two, once. Then reason swooped in with a reassuring recollection—she'd just finished her monthlies last week. It was possible to become pregnant _now_, she supposed, but unlikely to have already happened. Besides, the air through her nostrils was beginning to take on the burnt tang that meant a fever was coming on.

She leaned her flushed cheek against the cool plaster wall of the powder room and made a mental note to have A Conversation with Mrs. Penny at the earliest opportunity. Fond as she was of Christine, Florence had no interest in having a child of her own. Whatever plans she had had as a young wife had died with Arthur, and she was quite content with her life as it was now.

As if summoned by Florence's thoughts, a knock sounded at the powder room door. "Are you all right, Mrs. Green?" Christine called. "Only the post's come, and I think you should see it."

"Just a moment," Florence replied. She struggled to her feet and pulled the cistern chain, rinsed out her mouth from the tap and ignored the slightly green ghost of a woman looking back at her from the spotty mirror over the sink.

"What's all this?" she asked, wiping her sweating hands on her skirt and taking the pile of envelopes from Christine. "Does Milo have to open _all_ my mail?" she murmured, seeing that each of the envelopes was slit.

"All part of the service, love," said Milo, drifting by with a broom she suspected he had no intention of using.

She scanned the letters, frowned, and moved out into the light of the main shop to read them properly. The sick feeling rose in her throat again. She read them over, and then over again.

No. _No_, she wouldn't _dare_...

She swayed on her feet and steadied herself on the display table. Christine took one look at her expression and ran up the stairs to the flat. Milo, Florence noticed dimly, was hovering across the room, pretending to sweep and sneaking little glances at her. She read the letters again.

"Florence?" Edmund hurried down the stairs, Christine behind him like a busy sheepdog. Edmund was across the floor and at her side in three strides, a steadying hand at her back. She was suddenly shaking, so badly the pages in her hand rattled.

Edmund was saying something, but she did not hear. The words were swimming before her eyes, and she felt a momentary flash of gratitude that she'd already thrown up everything she possibly could before the rushing in her ears took over her whole body and she sank senselessly into Edmund's arms.

Florence woke herself up, five hours later, by being thoroughly sick all over the bed sheets. She crouched there, gasping and crying a bit, propped up on one elbow, and searched her mind for the reason she felt awful, besides the obvious. And then she remembered.

The letters.

She was crying in earnest when Edmund came in a moment later. He clearly thought she was crying because she was ill, and she did not correct him. He cleaned her gently with a bit of damp flannel, helped her out of her stained nightdress and into a clean one, and deposited her in the chair beside the bed while he changed the sheets. The lamp was on; its normally soothing yellow light felt oppressive and sharp and she shielded her eyes. As soon as Edmund noticed, he switched it off and finished working by the light coming through the window.

He came back a few minutes later, having set the sheets to soaking in the bath. She was still crying, in a listless sort of way, the tears sliding down her face and collecting under her chin. She didn't seem able to stop.

"Shhhh, Flory." He helped her to stand, but instead of going back to bed, she pressed herself against his chest. He held her close and rocked her gently, side to side, murmuring soothing things. His shirt smelled of starch and spice and _him_, and it was the only thing she could stand to smell at that moment.

"You'll feel better in a few days," he assured her, and she shook her head.

"You will, I promise—"

"No, it's not—I'm not—the letters..."

"Ah."

"D'd'you read them?" she whispered.

"Yes."

She curled a fist in his shirt and tugged in frustration. "_Why?_ Why does she hate me so much? She's making up lies now, but they sound so true..."

"I don't know." He sounded tired. "Flory... you don't have to stay here."

She pulled back, uncomprehending.

"We could—we could go somewhere else. You could open another shop."

She shook her head. "I don't have any money."

"I do," he said quietly. "In trust. Never touched it. It's yours, if you—want." He cupped her face in his hands and rubbed the sticky, drying tear tracks away with his thumbs. "There's being brave, and then there's standing still while somebody punches you. I don't—I can't—see you hurt."

"You'd really do that? You'd go away with me?"

"Of course. I'd go anywhere with you, Florence."

She took his hand. "Come to bed with me?"

He drew back the clean covers and guided her back under them. She thought he'd leave to change into pyjamas, but he just climbed up after her in his clothes, propped himself against the headboard and pulled her down to rest on him, cradling her in his arms. He stroked her hair with one hand and her eyes started to close.

"'ll try not t'be sick on you," she mumbled, on the edge of sleep.

"That's all I ask." He kissed the crown of her head and she drifted off, oddly comforted even though nothing had changed.

* * *

It was another week before Florence felt quite herself again. She dreaded the sound of the post slapping through the slot every day, but as the days passed and no more censorious letters arrived, the faint hope that by ignoring the problem it had gone away completely grew and blossomed in her mind. Perhaps, after all, there were limits to Mrs. Gammart's cruelty.

* * *

There were, it later transpired, twenty-four more letters sent over the next month. Six of them from Mr. Albert Talbot of the Council, eighteen of them from various and sundry "concerned citizens." Florence saw none of these letters. Christine and Milo intercepted them all.

* * *

"Evicted?" Florence couldn't seem to wrap her head around what the man in the trilby hat was saying. "I can't be evicted. I _own_ this property. I bought it myself."

"You can still be evicted, Mrs. Green." He slid out an oily smile. "Do you need me to explain British property law to you?"

"You needn't explain anything to me," Florence snapped, "except what you're still doing in my shop. Even _if_ the Council wanted to evict me, which I doubt, they'd at least need to give a reason, and some notice—"

"I have sent _several_ letters, Mrs. Green—"

"—which I never got! So it hardly counts!"

"That isn't how this works, Mrs. Green."

Florence came down the last few steps and planted herself in front of Mr. Talbot. "Then perhaps you _had_ better explain to me how this works, sir, because so far you have simply showed yourself to be an unpleasant liar."

"A property can be repossessed by the Council if it is considered of great historical significance and the current occupants are not using it to its full potential and/or are using it in such a way as to damage the architectural integrity of the property," Mr. Talbot stated, with the air of one who regularly memorizes council codes for his own amusement. "A property can _also_ be repossessed by the Council if the current occupants are operating any sort of establishment that threatens the peace of the surrounding environs, violates the Anti-Obscenity Act, or has been the subject of a public outcry."

Florence stood silent, her mind reeling. This really seemed to be happening.

"Normally, we don't tend to enforce either one of these statutes except in the direst of circumstances, but the fact that _both_, or rather, multiple incarnations of both charges have been leveled at your shop—"

"By whom?" Florence demanded, though she already knew.

"—forces us to take action." Mr. Talbot finished primly.

"I do not sell pornography," Florence said in a low voice. "And, and _what_ threat to the architectural integrity?"

Mr. Talbot looked around the room and raised a brow. "Those bookcases look rather heavy, don't they?" He flicked a postcard with his finger. "And I'm sure I don't know what you'd call these if not obscene. Likewise, there is a certain book (if we can call it that) by a Mr. Nabokov, that you've been selling to anyone who walks in off the street—"

"That's how bookshops _work_, Mr. Talbot!"

"—that isn't appropriate for a righteous mind. Of course," Mr. Talbot amended, thus securing his own status as one in possession of a righteous mind, "_I _haven't read it, but I've received numerous complaints."

"You can't censor what I sell simply because you don't _agree_ with it," Florence said, thrumming with barely contained outrage.

"As I say, it is not so much what _I _think as what the Council thinks, and the Council is duty-bound to observe the wishes of the community—"

"Balderdash," said Edmund, from behind Florence. He came down the stairs and stood at her side, a hand at her back, both protecting her and supporting her. "The Council never had an altruistic thought in their collective lives."

"Mr. Brundish." Mr. Talbot acknowledged Edmund in much the same tone as one observing the presence of a dead vole on their doorstep. "At any rate, Mrs. Green, you have been amply warned of our intentions, since you refused to comply with the wishes of your community, and since you have taken no action to begin the process of vacating the premises—"

"I. Never. Got. Any. Letters," Florence repeated, her voice rising. "Nothing but a few nasty notes from Mrs. Gammart and her friends, and none at _all_ from you or the bloody Council—"

"That's not strictly true." Milo walked out from the back room, a stack of paper in his hands. He laid it on the register counter and stepped back. Numb, Florence walked over and checked the top letter, then the next and the next. They were all there, letter after letter from Mr. Albert Talbot, letter after letter from citizens of Highbury, most too cowardly to sign their own name but all most adamant that her shop was corrupting the very fabric of their beloved village's existence. Florence could almost swear she smelled the whiff of Mrs. Gammart's perfume on every one.

"Where did these—when did they come?" She looked up. "Milo? When did these come? Why did you keep them from me?"

Milo looked supremely uncomfortable. "I thought I could—fix it for you."

"_Fix _it for me?" She began to feel slightly hysterical. "How on _earth_ would lying to me fix things?"

"There you are, then," said Mr. Talbot smugly. "You did receive the letters. It isn't _my_ fault if you never saw them—"

"Shut up," Florence snapped, and Mr. Talbot was so surprised that he did. "How were you going to fix this, Milo?" she demanded. "Tell me right now or get out of this shop."

Milo waved a dismissive hand at the stack of letters. "Those people are being led around by the nose by Vi Gammart, and they don't even make up a _tenth_ of the population. People love this shop, Flo. They love you, and your story, and I thought—I thought I could convince them to stand with you against whatever Gimlet Gammart planned to do next."

"Well, that's very noble," Florence said. "But no one's standing with me, are they? No one sent a counter letter, did they?" She appealed to the still-silent Mr. Talbot, who shook his head. "Yes. I see. No one's going to—no one's here."

"No," said Milo, and he looked genuinely sad. "No, they're not."

The shop door, which Mr. Talbot had closed, rattled open with a jangling of the bell, and Christine arrived, breathless, in the shop. Everyone stared at her, and Christine, conscious of having the floor, stood aside with a flourish and gestured toward the open door.

Mr. Raven walked in, flat cap in his hand and waders on his feet, carrying a torn sheet of fish-wrapping paper. He held it up. "M'letter," he announced, laying the piece of paper on the stack of complaints. "In support of the bookshop." He nodded to Florence and Edmund and walked out again, passing his man, Jed at the door.

Jed deposited an even grubbier sheet of fish paper on top of the stack without comment and left. Florence peered at it. "Pleese let Missus Green keep her shop," it read. "It is a good shop, and she is a good person. Signed, Jed."

Florence feared she might begin to cry. She _did_ begin to cry, as one by one, every citizen of Highbury, young and old, who had ever bought a book or stopped to chat, came into her shop and added a letter to the stack, until the twenty-four letters of complaint and threat were quite lost to view. People nodded to her, or glared at Mr. Talbot, or slapped Milo on the back, but they all left a letter.

"Mrs. Green runs the best bookshop Highbury has ever had."

"Please do not be mean to Mrs Green she is nice she let me borrow tom swift without paying until I found ten pence."

"There has never been a more courageous woman than our Mrs. Green."

Mr. Talbot, silent through it all, was turning an interesting shade of puce below his trilby hat. Florence rather expected steam to start coming out of his ears at any moment.

She did not have long to wait for his outburst.

"This is all very _touching_," he said nastily, "but it doesn't change the fact that formal complaints were lodged and the Council's time has been taken up and official dispensation has been granted to—"

"Formal complaints were lodged by whom?" Florence asked, drying her eyes with Edmund's handkerchief. She knew, of course she knew who it must be, but she wanted to hear him say it. Mrs. Gammart had been hiding behind her letters and her bureaucratic friends long enough.

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Talbot spat. "It's confidential. And anyway, such information—"

"It doesn't matter or it's confidential?" Edmund asked. "Two different things, my good man."

"Formal complaints were lodged _by whom?_" Florence insisted.

"By me, dear girl," said a rich voice, and Mrs. Violet Gammart, resplendent in peach silk, stepped into the shop. "Formal complaints were lodged by me."

"Thank you," said Florence incongruously, in a small voice. "That's all I wanted to know."

Mrs. Gammart walked slowly around the shop, her dyed silk heels tapping on the wood floors like the warning of a death watch beetle. She did not touch anything, only looked with a speculative air, her sheer net and ribbon hat tilting, and such was the power of her presence that no one spoke while she looked around.

She completed her circuit and paused by the register counter. Her white-gloved hand rested briefly on the untidy stack of letters, then she pulled it back and turned to face Mr. Talbot.

"Making a nuisance of yourself again, Albert?" she asked in a deceptively light voice.

Mr. Talbot spluttered. "I'm only doing what you asked me to, Aunt Vi—"

"Stop," said Mrs. Gammart. "I am withdrawing my complaints, and we all know that anyone else who has lodged them will withdraw their own, immediately they hear I have done so."

Florence hardly dared to breathe. Edmund clutched her hand in a tight grip, and Milo looked as if the whole scene had slipped wildly out of the grasp of his understanding. Christine was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Mrs. Gammart pivoted and turned her gaze on Florence. "I am withdrawing my complaints, pending the approval of a joint endeavour. The..." And here Mrs. Gammart's poise trembled for the first and only time since Florence knew her. She took a perceptible breath and carried on. "The Old House Bookshop and Highbury Arts Centre. Bookshops are, of course, centres of culture in their own right, and what better place to host weekly gatherings of music and literature? Performances of chamber music and so on."

"There's plenty of room if we move the tables aside," Christine offered.

"Quite so." Mrs. Gammart turned back to Mr. Talbot. "I am sure we can come to an arrangement between ourselves?" She looked to Florence, who nodded vehemently. "Without the interference of the council."

Mr. Talbot gaped, and grasped for words that did not come.

"Run along now, Albert."

Mr. Talbot stalked away, almost breaking the shop bell with the force of his exit.

Milo began to laugh and had to sit down. Florence stared at Mrs. Gammart as if she'd never seen the woman before, and indeed, she felt this was an entirely new Mrs. Gammart standing before her.

"Why did you change your mind?" she asked.

Mrs. Gammart looked from her to Edmund to Milo and finally to Christine, who stood by the door and hadn't stopped smiling.

"A little bird showed me where the path of honor lay." Her eyes moved back to Edmund, and they held each other's gaze above Florence's head. "And I decided to do the right thing."

* * *

The opening night party for the Old House Bookshop and Highbury Arts Centre was well-attended. Florence and Mrs. Gammart kept well away from each other. Florence suspected that distance would be the key to maintaining their uneasy truce. They had worked out a schedule for the season, with Wally acting as intermediary, and as long as Mrs. Gammart kept Florence apprised of any changes and Florence ceded hostess duties upon the nights in question (which she had no problem with; it had never been a goal of Florence's to speak in front of large groups of people), neither woman saw that there would be any reason to spend more time in each other's company than was strictly necessary.

All the doors and windows were open, every light was ablaze, and the party had spilled out into the street. Florence wore her red dress. She didn't stand out in _this _crowd.

She paused at the top of the shop steps and scanned the shifting group of dancers and drinkers in the street. Edmund had promised not to hide upstairs, but she knew his small store of politeness-for-strangers would have run out about an hour ago. She spotted him by the advertisement-plastered wall across the way; Christine slouched beside him, chattering and drinking a root beer with as much delinquency as she could muster.

Christine suddenly "remembered" her curfew as Florence approached and she vanished in the direction of Wally, who was waiting patiently at the end of the lane to walk her home. Florence grinned at her retreating back and took Edmund's outstretched hand. He pulled her into a dance and she threw back her head and laughed.

They settled into a slow sway as the band inside changed to "Moonlight Serenade." Florence rested her head on Edmund's shoulder. "I think the art scene in Highbury is turning out to be a bit more egalitarian and, and, _bohemian_ than Mrs. Gammart expected," she observed.

Edmund gave a small snort. "She'll get over it. She owns a turban with a feather; mark my words, she'll be wearing it by next week."

Florence giggled and lifted her head. "How do _you_ know about Mrs. Gammart's hats?"

He was quiet for a moment, looking past her to the shining windows of the shop. "Because I gave it to her," he said at last. "Violet and I used to be... friends."

Florence stopped dancing. "You never told me that."

"It was a long time ago. A very—long time ago."

"Why did you stop... being friends?"

"We grew apart, cliched as that is. We never liked the same things, though she used to think rather highly of my good opinion. But I—gave my opinion once too often, I suppose." His gaze moved back to her face, and Florence sensed he wasn't going to tell her everything tonight, if he ever did. They each had their pasts, and she knew better than anyone that some memories belonged to their keepers alone.

"It was the hat that did it, in the end," Edmund mused as they started dancing again.

Florence grinned. "How so?"

"She expressed an interest in the exotic and I tried to make amends with a turban. Wasn't quite what she had in mind, as it turns out, but perhaps she'll have a use for it at last."

She laughed, and he smiled to hear her laughter. He spun her out on a flourish of music and she kissed him when she reeled back in.

"Are you happy, Flory?" he asked, his deep voice a buzz against her throat as he kissed under her jaw.

"Yes, my love. Are you?"

"Infinitely," he said, and she kissed him again, slow-dancing in the street as music and light blazed from the bookshop behind them.


End file.
